


The Pines Home For Wayward Cryptids: As Documented By Stanford Pines

by actual_iggy



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Beware of wet boi, Gen, I don't know my dudes basically there's adopting and parenting woes so uh, I'm calling this the "Wayward Cryptid" universe, Killbillies, M/M, Parenting?, Wendigo, wayward cryptid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-04-22 12:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 20,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14308884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actual_iggy/pseuds/actual_iggy
Summary: Ford can't stay away from documenting everything in a journal for long. Follow along as he documents everything from daily life in his household to the life cycles of Mothmen.





	1. Cipher Returns

**Introduction**

Aha, you thought you had heard the last from Stanford Pines! I had sworn off journaling for a while, considering the trouble it got everyone I hold dear into before, but you cannot keep a pen from my hands nor a notebook from my desk. Therefore, I introduce this, a personal documentation of my current life.

I am currently preparing to leave on a seven month excursion with my twin brother, Stanley, to investigate anomalies all over the world and oceans. I just hope I don’t misplace my journal in the boxes of other books I am bringing along. Yes, Stanley made fun of me. I just happen to think bringing all my research books along is important, because then we can actually identify things we find.

My brother is an idiot, and I am concerned as to how we will get along in the next half year.

**The Unnamed Child On The Cape**

I lost my journal in the boxes of other books. Nobody tell Stanley.

We have been on the ocean for a few months now and have seen so many wonderful things! We have battled giant squid, been lured in by sirens and even traded stories with mermaids. Apparently, one influential family of them knows of my niece, Mabel after their son and heir was returned home by her efforts. Stanley will not stop referring to any marine humanoid creature we encounter as a mermaid. I’ve tried explaining the difference countless times.

All this fun came to a bit of a tragic moment when we approached the Oregon Coast. There was a child laying in the sand of a cape. He was wearing no clothes despite it being mid-December. We couldn’t in good conscious leave him there, so Stanley pulled the boat alongside the cape and I jumped out to claim this child.

I knew my medical degree would come in handy for someone other than myself eventually.

The child is currently under my close watch. He is emaciated, barely responsive and covered in sand-flea bites and other abrasions. His hair is caked in sand and seawater, but I was able to identify the color as a very bright yellow blond, almost unnatural.

I asked Stanley to send out a radio message for the following:

“Missing child, approximately ten to twelve years old, about four and a half feet tall, pale skin, freckles, odd blue tattoo on right eyelid, blond hair, obviously injured.”

We got the response that no such missing child had been reported. I decided we should stay in the vicinity of this small coastal town in case a report of a missing child emerges, or the boy recovers enough for us to find out from him where his family is.

**Day 2**

The mystery child has woken up on and off over the last few hours. He doesn’t speak much, but tugs on my coat for food and comfort. He seems to have taken a liking to me but is too weak to leave the make-shift bed we have set for him on our couch. I’ve sent Stanley to find some form of children’s clothing in a shop somewhere, as well as gather information that may help us return this boy to his home. He has a particularly bad flea bite just above his right eye, the one with the odd blue tattoo. The symbol looks familiar to me, but I cannot make it out under the swelling and redness. His eyes have never opened wider than a squint yet, but they seem to be a very brilliant gold. He is quite a peculiar child. I wonder where he is from?

 

**Day 3**

Mystery Child is recovering quite well- his fever has gone down considerably and he can now sit up and eat on his own. He also has been quietly wandering around the cabin when he thinks we can’t see him. He has a T-shirt Stanley found in a beachside tourist shop, but, at the moment, no pants or shoes. I caught him trying on one of my sweaters earlier today. I couldn’t even be mad at him when he looked up at me all wide-eyed and startled in an oversized turtleneck. It was adorable. I like this child. I hope to keep in contact when and if we reunite him with his family.

**Day 4**

Mystery Child may have been born in a cult. The swelling on his eye has gone down to a degree that I can see the tattoo. It is a triangle with an eye drawn inside. The spike of fear I felt when I saw that symbol was similar to when I first found myself in the Nightmare Realm. I rationalized that there is no tangible way this child has any domain or connection to Bill Cipher, and that Bill is in fact dead.

He noticed my six fingers today as well. He grinned and in a hoarse voice told me he would call me “Sixer.”

I don’t like that.

**Day 5**

Mystery Child continues to gain energy and health. His fever is completely gone. He still doesn’t speak much and when he does, his voice is quiet and hoarse. I suspect the extended period of dehydration he went through has mildly damaged his vocal cords and he will recover soon enough. He has told me he can’t remember where he is from. He only remembers a flash of light and then waking up in my arms on the way back to the boat.

I wonder what it could be? A lost child with amnesia? Shipwrecked on the cape? A runaway abuse victim with advanced repression? An outcropping of that “Blind Eye” cult recently disbanded in Gravity Falls? Could he be some sort of a sacrifice and that is why he is tattooed and was naked?

**Day 6**

Mystery Child’s voice grows stronger. I recognize that shrill and loud tone. It’s been giving me nightmares. I haven’t slept since I first recognized it yesterday. I keep telling myself to not slip into paranoia, that he is just a child who happens to sound eerily similar to…

Ah, never mind. I shouldn’t panic myself. He will be returned to his family soon and this will be over.

**Day 7**

My panic was warranted. I don’t know how or why, but this child is the new form of Bill Cipher. He woke up this morning and looked over at me, grinning. For the first time I saw his eyes fully- One pupil is elongated and the eye bright yellow, the other is blue and holds the Cipher Circle, which is pretty ominous, I think.

 

Stanley offered to toss him overboard, but something stopped me from telling him to do so. This Bill… he’s helpless, still covered in healing sand flea sores… I look at him and remember the way he would hold my coat and the innocence when he put my sweater on. I suppose I have no other choice than to keep him.

He does not seem to have any of his frightening supernatural abilities currently, or if he does, he has not been using them. I feel like it will be a valuable research opportunity to take this child in to my home.

**March**

We have to dock back in Oregon in order to resupply. Plus, it’s fun to spend the warmer months on land and I refuse to get caught in another ocean gale or hurricane.

Bill has more clothing since we took him in. He bears standard jeans and tennis shoes, and that shirt that asks “What is a child?” Stanley thought that was funny. I think it’s stupid. I don’t think Bill can read our language enough to actually know what the shirt says. Teaching him to avoid bodily harm has been a stressful and fruitless experience. He thinks it’s funny when he bleeds, when I bleed, or when I am injured at all.

He does, however, think it’s “cute” that we have names for the constellations, and one night asked me to point them all out. Despite the condescending tone to his voice, he looked up at them with a wonder exactly like any normal, non-demonic child. He told me that there were not many “star shapes” in his home world, but quickly fell silent when I probed further into what his home dimension was like.

We brought him back to the former Northwest Manor, where my close friend, Fiddleford now lives. Close friend is actually a bit of an understatement… We have a history…. An intimate one. We are, um……. ylbuirvmwh.

I’ll be honest, I do not understand why Bill is a child in his human form, and he still won’t tell me. He makes everything very difficult, all the time.

Fiddleford refuses to acknowledge him as an adoptive child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The code means "boyfriends."  
> Ford is a shy boy who won't outright say a boy likes him.


	2. Dipper and Mabel Return to Gravity Falls

**May**

My great niece and nephew showed up at the manor last night unexpectedly. Dipper explained that their parents had been fighting constantly, and so they decided to leave and come here instead. When I asked the two how they had gotten from Piedmont to Gravity Falls on their own, seeing as they’re 13 years old, Mabel produced a wallet and announced she stole it from her father. Stanley high-fived her. He is a terrible influence.

Dipper has some bruising on his face and arms that looks far too fresh and severe to suit his story of bullies. I did not press it further, however, I did assure the both of them that we will not send them back to California.

I think it is time for Stanley and I to contact our baby brother Sherman about his son.

**Confronting Stephen**

I pulled Stanley aside and told him my suspicions: Dipper had been beaten by his father, and that is where those bruises on his face and arms had come from. He immediately agreed with me. We know damn well where those sorts of bruises come from, having both carried them around through our own childhoods. Oddly, Mabel does not seem to be as roughed up as her brother. I will have to corner Dipper and ask him about this- I have a suspicion, but I would like to confirm it before documenting it.

Either way, I told Stanley to start the car while I called Sherman. Sherman is the children’s grandfather and the younger brother of Stanley and I. He was an infant when I left for college, and now has a son, Stephen, who is Dipper and Mabel’s father. Stephen is likely the problem here. Pines men are either very even-tempered and analytical, like myself, or angry and ready to fight at all times, like Stanley.

We made it to Piedmont in 5 hours rather than the standard 8. Stanley is terrifyingly fast at driving when he needs to get somewhere. I was too angry to be scared, however, as we approached the home. Sherman’s Jeep was already out front, a good sign. Maybe Stanley and I would not be needed. We, and by that I mean Stanley with me reluctantly following, pressed on anyway.

“Stephen Pines.” I greeted him, hands behind my back as Stanley and Sherman stood on either side of me. I don’t usually relish in the fear of others, but seeing the man who hurt my nephew so badly he fled so frightened of my brothers and I was quite a delightful feeling.

I gave him a stern and mildly physical lecture on breaking the Pines cycle of abuse, and then informed him that we were taking his children into our care until he wises up. Stanley got a hold of him next and gave him a much more aggressive ultimatum: “If you ever try to hurt those kids again, you’ll have to come through me and Ford first.”

Stanley is not the most eloquent speaker in the world, but he certainly gets his points across well.

**The Twins Meet Bill**

Dipper is rightfully suspicious of Bill and of me for taking him in. I’ve explained my reasoning: that for the time being, Bill is simply a lost and helpless child. He and Mabel seem to get along a lot better. The more chaotic parts of their personalities mesh well and the entire manor is coated in glitter. Bill still calls the two by his own nicknames for them- “Pine Tree” and “Shooting Star.” He calls me a variety of names, but for the most part seems to stick to just Ford, like everyone else.

I did corner Dipper and ask why he was injured while his sister seemed untouched. He confirmed it: He took beatings in her defense. He did not want her to be hurt by their father, so he always jumped to her defense. Bill did not help at all, loudly coming up behind me and asking “WOW, PINE TREE, DID YOU GET HIT BY A BUS?” and then laughing when Dipper glared at him.

I feel a need to write everything Bill says in capital letters to emphasize that he has literally no concept of an “indoor voice.”


	3. Ford Goes To South Carolina

**The Peculiar Case Of The Southern Cryptids**

Jason G. Jones is a young man I met in an airport in New Jersey, after Stanley, Sherman and I had spent a weekend forgetting about Steven’s faults in our hometown. We went to the Atlantic City International Airport in Egg Harbor Township. (Egg Harbor Township is NOT a valid town name but that is a rant for another time and perhaps mildly unwarranted for someone from a place called Glass Shard Beach. Though at least Glass Shard Beach sounds like a REASONABLE TOWN NAME AND NOT SOMETHING MY NEICE MADE UP. But I digress.) He owns a farming property in South Carolina and told me he was visiting New York City for “business.”

Jason is a very odd individual. He apparently is some sort of immortal or long-lived being (or just mentally unstable) as he constantly references times long before even I was born. He allegedly learned how to brew moonshine from farmers in the 1920s during Prohibition, as well as fought in or at least watched the Civil War go by. Stanley urged me to be careful who I trusted, especially as far as random young men in the airport. He babies me far too much for someone who is the younger twin!

I asked if Jason knew anything of me, as I am growing a little bit famous in the scientific and cryptozoological community, and he squinted for an absurdly long time before saying my name sounded familiar, and I would do better to ask his eldest son about anything to do with “all them science cryptic folks.”

He did, however, say that around his hometown there had been strange noises in the woods and disappearances of tourists at night, so he said if I thought I could do anything about it, then I was welcome to head back South with him to a small town in Sanderson County, South Carolina.

Despite Stanley’s doubts, I agreed to go and it was there that we parted ways. I went with Jason, asking him details of these occurrences, and Stanley and Sherman proceeded on back to Oregon.

**The Mysterious Attacks In Sanderson County**

According to Jason, the attacks began sometime last month. At first it seemed like just one or two hikers had run into a bear or cougar, but as soon as a local hunter disappeared, the townsfolk became wearier. The only evidence left behind of these attacks has been blood and signs of scuffling, along with trees that seem to be knocked over or uprooted, hence the thought of a bear.

The hunter had reappeared at the Jones’ farmhouse late one night, dirty, covered in claw wounds and babbling about some sort of monster attack. The fact that this seemed to be so close to Jason’s family (he apparently has a wife and five or so children. He looks to be hardly older than 20 years old, so I am further intrigued.) had him on edge, so he was anxious to get back and bring help. Since I am a “crypt-a-science-lologist” in Jason’s words, I am his help. His made-up words remind me fondly of Fiddleford. I wonder if all Southerners do that.

I asked if Jason got a description of the so-called monster from the hunter, but he just glanced away from me and quietly said, “He was real hurt…”

I don’t think that hunter survived very long after escaping the attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Egg Harbor Township is a real place.


	4. Ford Meets the Jones' and Begins the Hunt

**The Jones Family**

I have arrived at the Jones’ farmhouse. His family is incredibly peculiar.

His wife, Mary, looks exactly as young as him, and always has one or two infants in her immediate vicinity. She is cheerful and hospitable to me, but very brisk and no-nonsense with her children. She and Jason seem to be happy.

Their oldest daughter is an air-headed girl by the name of Daisy-Mae. The first time she saw me, she stared quizzically at me and then seemed to move on to another task. I don’t like that look, it makes me a tad suspicious. I am as of yet unsure of what sort of harm a fifteen year old girl could cause me, but I also do not want to find out.

The next youngest children are twin boys named BJ and Lucas. Lucas was the one Jason was referencing when he told me to ask his eldest son about my reputation. The boy looked almost as excited as Dipper to see me for the first time. He seems to be much less anxious and excitable, though. BJ is less bookish and more into sports and other physical tasks. Watching the two of them interact reminds me of Stanley and I as teenagers. According to my failsafe method of establishing who is the older twin (simply ask. The older twin will always specify that it is them while the younger insists it doesn’t matter who is older), BJ is the older of the two.

Next down the line is ~~Kailey~~ ~~Kailee~~ Kaileigh (pronounced keye-lee), who appears to have mastered dark spells and magic. She asked me if I knew any spells, to which I started to reply that I do, until her father pulled me away and told her to “stop botherin’ the guest with your Satanic ritual nonsense.” Jason is clearly a very religious man, as religious as any other Southerner, I suspect, and so I’d suppose his youngest daughter practicing dark magic is not exactly his favorite thing.

The next youngest is the little boy JJ. JJ is very asocial and does not speak- in fact he is non-verbal autistic, “despite our best efforts” according to his mother. They seem to love him and his quirks even with their disdain for his condition, and I managed to get him to speak to me by asking him about the toy car he was rolling on the floor. The child can recite back full sentences, it seems, if they are about cars. It’s quite cute to hear a seven year old child recite a paragraph about 1970s muscle cars that he probably read in a library book.

The youngest is another set of twins! Their names are Hunter and Tucker and they are infants and therefore devoid of much observable personality.

The family also has odd pets. An aged German Shepard named Rosco and, of all things, a domesticated opossum. Apparently the children have named it Barbecue because it likes barbecue sauce. It wanders the home like a strange cat, wearing little sweaters and doll clothes. I could not make this up if I tried.

JJ noticed my six fingers and made this known to me by simply tapping my hand and saying “six.” His odd little mannerisms are really quite charming.

**The Property**

The Jones’ property is 500 acres of land about ten miles outside the small town of Allan. They grow primarily corn and cotton. Several acres of the land is, however, uncleared woods. Jason explained that he hunts and traps in the woods both to feed his family and to sell the furs in town like some sort of pioneer. He pointed out the quite complex multi-tree fort BJ and Lucas were building about fifteen minutes into the woods from the back of the home, telling me that he feared what was in those woods, not only because of it’s potential supernatural aspects, but because his children play and spend time in the trees and he does not want them to be in danger. He truly seems to love and adore his family, it’s quite endearing.

Deeper into the woods is something Jason made me swear to tell nobody. It is where he obtains that oddly strong alcohol he seems to have in his home. That is all I will say about that particular site, as I certainly do not want my new friend arrested.

We arrived at a clearing which Jason declared to be a suitable place to set up camp for the evening in the hopes it attracted whatever creature was causing the attacks. He set about starting a fire and making a simple shelter against a tree. I investigated the clearing for any sort of supernatural signs.

**The Hunt**

I had found no evidence of anything out of the ordinary in this clearing, so Jason and I resigned to sitting and waiting. He demonstrated that he can play the banjo. I feel like he and Fiddleford would get along incredibly well, if Fiddleford could get over the fact that Jason is rather dense, intellectually. I spoke of the fact I was in New Jersey because it was where I grew up, alongside Stanley. I mentioned that I was teased as a child, but not what I was teased for. I admit, I am still incredibly hesitant and nervous to show people my anomaly. However, it seems Jason is more perceptive than I give him credit for, as he laughed and asked if I was teased for my hands. I was taken aback, obviously, and Jason just grinned at me and said he had noticed almost immediately after we met, but had decided against mentioning it. His words were quite a comfort to me, who finds it hard to find acceptance even in this day and age. There is a reason I try to avoid hospitals at all costs, after all. I will document Jason’s words here:

“I don’t mind it none, anyways. Lots of folks out here got birth defects and extra toes and all that. It makes you odd, sure, but not less of a good man.”

This heartwarming moment was cut short when I heard someone calling in the distance. Jason did that absurdly long squint again and then got to his feet. The note of fear in his voice is something I had not thought someone like him could manifest as he said “BJ ain’t supposed to be out here.” I urged him quietly to alert Lucas that his brother was apparently in the woods in peril, to which he produced a walkie-talkie that the teen had given him before we left. Apparently Jason gets into peril in these woods a lot, so this is common. Lucas confirmed that his brother was sitting next to him, playing a video game, and not in fact in the woods.

I suddenly knew what supernatural creature we were dealing with.

**Wendigo**

I first read of the existence of wendigo in my college Cryptozoology 102 class, and even then they terrified me. The wendigo is a grotesquely deformed humanoid creature, generally found in the isolated woods of Northern Canada and the Pacific Northwest. They are created when someone is stranded in the wilderness and becomes so desperate they resort to cannibalism to survive. This act twists them into a beast with an unending hunger for human flesh. Wendigo are advanced hunters with supernatural senses and speed. They also tend to be quite tall, anywhere from 15-20 feet depending on who you talk to. They will relentlessly hunt their prey, but they only hunt at night. During the daytime they are resting in their dens- a cave or abandoned house decorated with the bones of their prey.

They are known to terrorize and tease their prey before attacking, and often kidnap rather than kill and eat on site, though if they are particularly hungry, they will do that. They can mimic quite a few different sounds and are known to pose as people calling for help in order to lure you further into their territory. I suspect this one had been watching Jason’s family, as it knew exactly which child to copy to tempt Jason to run blindly into the woods, into its claws.

If what I have read is to be believed, then the wendigo’s natural call is a blood-curdling screech, which they use to further terrify their prey. I also read of a way to kill them: Stab or shoot with silver, directly into their heart, which is made of glass-like ice. Then you must shatter the heart, put every shard into a silver container, then bury it in an old church cemetery. Then you must burn the wendigo’s body and scatter the ashes. Allegedly simply incinerating the creature can work too, but only if they are reduced to ash and then scattered. They can regenerate limbs and heal from injury nearly instantly, otherwise. The image running through my head at the thought of incinerating one is a 20 foot tall flaming Eldritch beast running after me, angered because, well, it’s on fire.

I hate wendigo.

**The Hunt, Part 2**

I explained to Jason what we were up against, and he looked at me with a sort of confidence completely inappropriate for the situation. He told me he thought we could take the creature easily, if I would put down my “goddamn scribbly science book” for three seconds.

This may be my last entry. If you find this journal, please immortalize me in a museum.


	5. Ford has Made A Friend

**Recovery**

I am alive, albeit barely.

Following is a recounting of the attacks as far as I can recall, and then I will hand my journal off to Jason so he can recount what I cannot remember.

Jason and I laid eyes on the wendigo as we were hurrying out of the woods. It looked like what may happen if one were to take a human, behead it, glue a rotting deer head onto the shoulders, then take it and stretch it to be 15 feet tall. Long, thin, smelling of rot, huge, vacant black eyes… I knew true terror when I saw it. I asked Jason if he had any silver anything in the house, to which he responded he did not and asked if I thought he was made of money. I ignored that and asked if he thought we may be able to obtain some in town. The idiot actually stopped running to consider this. I stopped to grab him by the arm, when the creature, incredibly fast, was upon us.

I then remembered: Some pocketknives are silver coated, the same way some silverware is. I asked Jason if he had a knife, he did, Southerners often do, and I took it and turned to face the wendigo. The creature stopped to look at me, leaning down so I was level with its face. I glared back at it and tried to mask my fear. Jason was nowhere to be found and here I was, about to battle a fifteen foot tall supernatural being with a tiny pocket knife in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina.

Luckily, I did not have to do that. Jason, continuing to run, had fetched his car, a beat up old red pickup truck, and actually swerved it into the wendigo. This staggered the thing and I was able to quickly climb into the bed of the truck and catch my breath as we sped off, towards town. I glanced back and saw the wendigo starting to sprint after us, gaining ground quickly. The road was bumpy, I was unsecured in the back of a truck, and I was being pursued by perhaps my least favorite cryptid. It was not a fun time. We reached town in record time, Jason careening through the main road, horn blaring as lights came on in every house we passed.

Eventually, we wound up barricaded in the town hall, bruised, sweaty, and terrified. I asked Jason if there was any source of silver or flame we could get our hands on, and he considered for a while with that thinking squint of his. He finally had an idea: the local church. They held nice dinners sometimes and were therefore likely to have silverware. The only problem was that the building was across the street from the town hall, and the wendigo, though not visible at the moment, was almost certainly prowling. We made a plan: Jason would run for the church while I made a distracting amount of noise from the top floor of the town hall. Jason knew he could get into the church and bar the door behind him while he collected silverware, and then he could dart back across the street to safety. I climbed up onto the roof of that town hall and looked at the bells in my hands, knowing it may be the last thing I ever did. I began to ring.

The wendigo was attracted immediately, but could not figure out a way up onto the roof to get at me. I watched it circle my position in increasing agitation as I continued to ring my bells. I saw Jason sprint across the road and into the dark church. Then the unthinkable happened. The wendigo, realizing I was simply a diversion, went for the church. It could not get through the barred door or sealed windows, but then again, I thought, neither could Jason. I quickly made my way back down, terrified that I had inadvertently caused the death of my new friend. Then, through one of the town hall windows, I saw Jason at the top of the church, going out, his pack full of silverware and pots. He jumped and fell the two or so stories to the ground, popped up and limp-sprinted back to the door which I quickly opened.

His leg was obviously broken, and I suspect only because of adrenaline had he been able to walk on it. I made a splint of a curtain and some chair legs- crude, but it would work until such time when we could access a hospital. He kept insisting he was fine and I should work on the silver and not him, but I told him that first aid was more important at the moment. He also had a small cut on his cheek where he had fallen, and this I began to wash with a water bottle and part of the curtain, when it began to close of its own accord. I was startled, and must have looked it because Jason just weakly chuckled at me and told me “his kind” do that.

I didn’t have time to probe into that or ask anything else, as I had to melt down the silver and make a crude stabbing instrument. This accomplished via the already-broken chair, some copy paper and a match, I looked at my new weapon. Sharp, sort of twisted, but very effective. It was time to fight.

Once more, I faced the creature and once more I brandished my weapon at it. However, this time, I think it recognized my sword/dagger implement as what it was and immediately swiped at me with its claws. This is where my memories get hazy, as all I recall is hitting the ground and then pain. I will hand off the journal to Jason now, so that he may account the remainder of our fight:

_Well um, after Ford went down, I jumped up and got the knife from him, and I had to go after that thing cuz it was a threat to my family and me and Ford and so I grabbed the knife and I jumped harder than I think I ever have before and I stabbed it right in the heart, just like he told me you gotta do, and it went down and I used my hunting knife to cut out the heart- it was made of ice just like Ford said, and I smashed it real good under my boot._

_Then I had to make up a silver container out of an old pot and put all the bits of the heart in it and bury the whole thing in the graveyard. Then I burnt up the body with matches and kicked the ashes around real good to scatter em. Then Ford wasn’t up yet, so I had to go find him. He was bleeding real bad so I picked him up best I could, and put him in the truck and started going fast as I could to the hospital twenty miles North. He was bleeding real bad still and wasn’t looking so good so I had to stop and I had to make him wake up._

_I had to give him some of my blood because its special and I knew that. I don’t know why I knew, I just did. And it worked and his cuts stopped bleeding so much so we could go on to the hospital. I got him there and I explained it was a cougar to the reception lady cuz she doesn’t have to know that it was a wendygo and they took Ford back and I got his phone and I looked at all the numbers to see who I oughta call._

_His brother texted him and asked if everything was okay and so that’s the one I called. Told him his brother was in the hospital probably getting stitches and he’d be okay. He told me he was heading out there right now. Told him I’d keep an eye on Ford til he got there. He showed up early the next morning and he had some scrawny Southerner with him and apparently Ford is a gay and that is his boyfriend Fiddleford. He’s from Tennessee and  he seems real nice and real smart. Covered in animal bite scars though. Wonder what he’s seen in his life._

_I told everyone they could stay at the farmhouse as long as they needed cuz it was kinda my fault Ford got hurt to start with, so I sort of owed them all I could do. Ford started to wake up a day later from all the sedation and stuff and he asked me for his notebook and I gave it over and he started writing again and now here I am._

_I’ll give it back now cuz I don’t have anything else to say that he can’t say better and with bigger words then me._

_-Jason G Jones_

Jason is right in saying I woke up and immediately asked for my journal. Here I sit, in a hospital, recovering from blood loss and wounds, and recounting my pains. Apparently, Fiddleford and Stanley are on their way from the farmhouse right now to see me, now that I have awoken.

Jason’s description of “giving his blood” makes me wonder: What kind of creature is he? Immortal, unaging, regenerative, and apparently able to cure with blood.

It doesn’t matter what he is in the end. What he is to me is the man who saved my life. I have to think of some way to repay him, or at least show my gratitude.


	6. Ford Was Named After A Pun

**My Assistant, Jason**

I have invited Jason and his two older boys to come back to Oregon with us when I am recovered enough from my wounds for travel. They will act as my research assistants, live in the manor with the rest of us, and of course be compensated for their time. Fiddleford has agreed that this is a good course of action. This farmhouse is falling apart and it does not seem that the family can pay for repairs all that well. Fiddleford has, of course, been doing what he can- he loves working with his hands and yelling at me about using power tools safely, but the family obviously needs more income. Jason is too proud of a man to accept an offer for us to simply pay for his home repairs, so I decided an offer of work is what I can do.

Jason proved himself unflappable and invaluble in times of extreme stress with the wendigo attack and its aftermath. I do not regret picking him as an assistant and Fiddleford is simply glad that he doesn’t have to go out into the woods with me anymore. Lucas seems ecstatic to be given the opportunity to work with me and his brother simply seems to be eager to find adventure. I had wanted to invite just Lucas along, but if I know anything, its that he would never leave his twin.

I also managed to ask Daisy-Mae, the oldest child, why she reacted so oddly to me when we first met. She told me that she finds it odd that I “don’t think,” to which I responded I am always thinking. She asked me, and I quote, “then why can’t I hear it?”

Asking Jason later, apparently Daisy-Mae has an innate ability to read minds, but cannot hear my thoughts. I am the first like this she has ever met, and I think I know why. I think that the metal plate in my head prevents any sort of anything from accessing my mind. I like it this way. I don’t need a teenage girl listening to my every thought.

**Back in Oregon**

Driving from the Portland airport to Gravity Falls was uneventful save for the traffic. Jason and I both seem to share a frustration for the stupidity of the general public, much to Fiddleford’s distaste. I have realized that I do not technically have a middle finger, as there is no “middle” of six. I am not sure what to do with this information. I also may just still be high on the pain medication given to me for my wounds. I probably should be lying down and not writing.

**Teaching Bill How to Be A Real Person**

Bill is difficult.

He yells everything, refuses to bathe, refuses to listen to me half the time, and overall shows no ability to be a human whatsoever. I took him to a grocery store with me in an effort to see if he would learn by observing other human children and he started calling the workers “grocery slaves” and threw a block of cheese at my head when I asked him to stop.

To keep myself from going completely insane, I will now list some actual instances of progress we have made.

. -I have gotten him to say “thank you” and otherwise be polite. Though getting him to remember is usually in the following form: “I HATE IT.”  “Bill, people say thank you when given a gift.” “THANK YOU. BUT I HATE IT.”

-He does not touch the stove anymore after the fourth time he was burned and I had to apply ointment to one of his limbs.

-I don’t know if he actually no longer harms and harasses the local wildlife or if he has just stopped bragging about it to me but either way I still consider it a victory.

-Listens to Jason. The man is quite intimidating when he gets angry and this works to my advantage as far as Bill.

I have also found out that his full name is not William. It’s Billiam. I have an inexplicable urge to travel to his dimension and fight his mother. Billiam is not a name. (So says the man named Stanford, I suppose… At least the university bearing the name was named after a real person. Billiam is just…. Not a thing.)

I’ve just realized that the emblem for Stanford University contains a pine tree.

My parents named me for a pun.


	7. The Wendigo in Ford's Basement

**The Wendigo in my Basement**

**(Why the FUCK are there wendigo in my basement?)**

If there is one cryptid I fear, it is the wendigo. Unkillable, fast, a horrifying creature made of a heinous act of desperation. I still bear the wounds from my last encounter with one, though they are healing well. Imagine my surprise when I went to the basement to fetch a first aid kit and found myself staring one in the face. I dropped the kit and sprinted up the stairs immediately, expecting claws in my back at any moment, but I think I confused it.

When telling Jason about this, he wanted to go down to see the creature, despite my warnings. You would think he’d be more cautious after what happened in South Carolina.

**Update**

Jason has apparently befriended the wendigo. That’s a plural. There are two of them down there. I think they’re juveniles, as they seem to be smaller than your standard wendigo and have more childish proportions, smaller antlers, all the indications of a child-monster. I did not know that wendigo 1. Could be pack animals or 2. Could be children. It horrifies me to consider what must have happened to these two to convert them into creatures created from desperation. Current theories include that they may have been members of a family camping in the local woods during last Summer's events and been stranded, they may have been abused, or even that they may have been feral children who attacked a hiker.

This could be an interesting research opportunity if I can overcome my fear that they may discover the entire manor above them and decide it would make a good den. I am unsure of how well they can hunt for themselves as this is brand new territory for anyone in the field of cryptozoology ever.

Jason has named them Billy and Beth and has fed them all of the meat products in our fridge so far. They seem to prefer pork over any other sort of meats. Fiddleford is probably going to be upset with us for wasting all the groceries on cryptid children.

Bill keeps asking me if they are his siblings. I’m not sure he understands how family works.

**Mind Dimension: Culture**

I finally have convinced Bill to sit with me and describe the culture he is from.

Everyone of Bill’s race gains their frankly frightening supernatural abilities when they come of age- Bill had just gotten his when the dimension crumbled. This makes him consider himself an adult despite having the human form and brain of a pre-teen child.

The classic “All-seeing eye” symbol is his signature. The way he puts it on things indicates “Bill was here.” The triangle indicates his caste, the circle, his age, and the line his gender. This happens to look like a face to our kind, he explained, which he finds amusing. The language seems very simple for a race of powerful demonic entities. Individual words are indicated within the age-symbol. Bill demonstrated with his name, a sideways line, and a smaller circle. He says it means he is hungry. He then asked me for a sandwich.

This little demon is very co-dependent considering all the damage he can and has done…

Castes of Bill’s dimension are based upon the shape one is born with. Bill says his shape, a triangle, was considered the lowest caste, barely better than animals. His mother was high-ranking, however, as a circle, and his father was a hybrid, a trapezoid. He had a brother and a sister, apparently. No comment on who was older. I don’t know if he didn’t want to tell me, or if he just doesn’t remember. He says he has been outside of his dimension for a long time, but would not say why.

Piecing together what I know from previous interactions with Bill, I believe the crumbling of his home dimension was his fault, and that it did in fact crumble and disappear.

**Farther Study Of The Wendigo Children**

I never knew wendigo could play, but that is what these two seem to be doing. The two juveniles in my basement can often be heard mimicking childrens’ laughter and play-hunting one another. So far they seem to be content with their den as it is and I for one am not going to interfere, lest they decide to move into the rest of the home.

Jason’s “fool’s courage” came in handy yet again last night. He was feeding the children a whole pig from the butcher and one of them nicked his hand in its eagerness for a meal. Having the taste of human blood in its mouth, the child pounced upon my poor assistant.

I know from South Carolina that Jason has remarkable healing and regenerative abilities (a normal human would still be moving on crutches after the break his leg sustained in Allan!), but I don’t think anything could survive the ripping and tearing of a wendigo attack. So, I watched helpless as Jason was savaged by this cryptid child. He eventually grabbed it by it’s antlers, and staring right into its empty, black eyes, shoved it backwards and barked an order at it: “YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!”

The creature seemed taken aback and did in fact pause in its attack. Jason then violently gestured towards the back of the basement and commanded the child go lay down. To my shock, it obeyed and slunk away. Jason rounded on the younger one and it too scurried off. I was in complete shock- my stupidly brave assistant had just intimidated two of the most terrifying cryptids known to man into cowering in the back of the basement.

Jason is an idiot, but I trust him with the care of these two. They seem to let him pet their heads and scratch behind their ears. I wonder if they view him as their parent?


	8. Stan Gets A Son

**Startling Development with Bill**

Bill has regained his abilities. I am understandably panicking just a bit.

I caught him today, attempting to juggle some knives and forks, and when I told him to stop that and put them back, he paused, looked at me, shrugged, said “YOU’RE THE BOSS, I GUESS.” And telepathically opened the drawers and levitated the cutlery back into them.

I don’t know to what extent he has them, nor how much of a danger this poses to everyone else.

I wonder if I have made a stupid mistake once again and endangered my family and this town. It’s always me, it’s always my fault. I did not speak up against my father, I fell for simple flattery, I ignored my closest friend, I let that rift out of my sight, I provoked Stanley and now…. I couldn’t abandon a child who needed me, and now I have grown attached to this Bill and his odd navigations of human behavior, and now he grows more powerful and dangerous and it’s only a matter of time before he attempts something, and….

Perhaps if I don’t make it into a big deal, Bill will not realize how frightened I am. The way to work with him is, after all, to not let him know your weaknesses.

He is still a human child, with the limitations of his body. Perhaps his abilities will tire him out faster this way, so he does not have the unlimited energy I have seen before.

**A Call**

As if I were not under enough stress, I got a call from Sherman. Our mother is dead. She had been ill for a while, and I knew this, but…

You never expect to lose your parent, even when your twin brother and you are both over sixty years old and your baby brother is a grandpa.

We will all be traveling to Glass Shard Beach to attend the funeral service, and to see our father for the first time in, well… a long time. Stanley in particular is nervous to go- he has not been back to that neighborhood since the night he was kicked out. I came back a few times during college, even brought Fiddleford at one point.

At any rate, I will return to my studies after we return.

**All Is Well In The Manor**

Roughly a week later and I have come back to my writing. Sherman has offered to come stay for a while at the manor, to be closer to the rest of us. Also, my father, somehow still alive and fully ready to fight at all times, has come to live here too. I couldn’t say no. All these years and countless nightmares later and I am still thoroughly intimidated by him. Jason seems to think it’s nice that I allow my family to stay here. I wonder if he ever regrets coming to be my assistant, across the country from his wife and younger children?

On the other side of things, Lucas Jones and Dipper seem to be bonding quite well. They’re around the same age, both have twin siblings, and both have an interest in anomalies and the supernatural. I overheard Lucas explaining that he got teased for being intelligent at his old school in South Carolina, and Dipper agreeing that this happened to him too. So I suppose they are bonding over being the odd child as well.

I wish I’d had that sort of companionship as a boy- there’s only so much of one’s social needs one’s twin brother can fulfill.

Summer in Gravity Falls is in full swing, with it that sticky humid heat that central Oregon is known for. We are currently organizing a household trip to the lake. I have had to explain sunburn to Bill entirely too many times and am considering just giving up and letting him get one so he stops defying me when I attempt to apply sunscreen. Jason seems to just let his boys get burned over and over, which concerns Fiddleford and I greatly.

We have been told to stop meddling in Jason’s parenting.

**More Cryptids?**

When at the lake, everything was going well, when I was approached.

The man I was approached by was Fiddleford’s adult son, Tate. He runs the tackle shop beside the lake and seems content to stay there despite his father inviting him to the manor countless times. I met Tate 30 years ago when he was a small child- Fiddleford showed up one day with him, explaining his mother had sent him to stay in Gravity Falls and he could not find a sitter. We mostly just put him in front of my TV and went about our work. I realize now that this is not entirely ethical child-rearing.

On the other hand, Bill has developed an affinity for violent video games, and I for one am not going to stop him lest he decide to act on his violent ideas in real life instead of in _Stealy Wheely Automobiley 5_.

Anyway, Tate explained he knew I knew things about this town, and so I was the one he sought out to help with this particular issue. I was intrigued, so I followed him. Tate is usually very stand-offish (moreso than his usual loner attitude, that is) towards me, with good reason. It is, after all, basically my fault that Fiddleford lost his home and sanity, and therefore Tate his chance for a normal childhood…

I followed Tate to behind his store, where there was a covered dog crate. I was intrigued and asked what exactly he had caught. He shrugged and told me it looked like “some kind of ape thing.”

I pulled the cover from the crate, looked inside and what I saw was an addition to my research on the life cycles of cryptids.

The creature was about the size of a medium dog, covered in shaggy, light brownish fur and yet had an oddly human face and limbs. It was a very small, presumably infant Sasquatch- a Bigfoot. I told Tate so and asked how he caught it. He told me he had heard something rummaging through his garbage in the night, and gone out with a net to shoo away or relocate what he assumed was a raccoon or stray cat. Instead he saw this creature. He caught it and coaxed it into the crate and then speculated on what to do next. Suspecting the clumsy animal was a child, he left it out overnight to see if any parents would come and claim it, but none did.

Seeing as it attempted to eat garbage and was easily caught by a very confused shop owner, I do not think this juvenile is fit to survive on its own. Therefore, as I announced to the family, we will be taking it in until it is fully grown.

**“Harry” Finds A Guardian**

Mabel gave the baby Bigfoot that name. He seems to have taken to her and Stanley, which concerns me. Stanley seems irritated at the way the ape-like child is always trying to climb him, and Mabel likes sitting and trying to comb out his fur.

His species does not seem to be innately aggressive, rather they are shy and curious, and not do attack unless provoked, based on my research. Also, unlike a wendigo in South Carolina, it makes perfect sense for a Sasquatch to be living in the Oregon woods. Maybe Gravity Falls is a tad too far south. I’m not sure. We do get moose here occasionally. I wonder what happened to this baby to separate him from his mother?

Either way, since he likes Stanley so much, he can sleep in that bedroom and stop wrecking the living areas.

**Stanley Cannot Go Two Seconds Without Teaching Something To Commit Crimes**

I read of the baby dinosaur Stanley attempted to raise during Dipper and Mabel’s first summer in Gravity Falls. Fiddleford added that he remembers following a creature to that cavern, and then awaiting the family, knowing they’d likely be attracted as well. The odd thing about Fiddleford and his period of insanity is, he cannot entirely remember what happened. He is slowly putting bits together, but still has “foggy” days. Our scans on his brain show that the traditional center for memory is completely destroyed and dead, and therefore the neurons must have re-routed themselves when stimulated to begin recovering. Fascinating medical science there, but irrelevant at the moment.

Harry has bonded to Stanley and Stanley is teaching him skills that only Stanley has.

I should make a documentary entitled “Bigfoot And Crime: It May Surprise You.”

At this point, we have a mind-demon child, two juvenile wendigo and a baby Bigfoot in the house. This is exciting for research purposes, but stressful for all other ones. I’ve been researching and have suggested to Fiddleford that we make a pneumatic seal for the basement door- the wendigo children should not be able to get through it and into the house that way. Of course, they can still come and (hopefully) go through the door to the outside as they please. I think I have an idea.


	9. The Pines Home For Wayward Cryptids

**The Pines Home For Wayward Cryptids**

Everyone is on board with my idea. We start taking in orphaned cryptids and rehabilitate them, as well as learning about their behaviors. I have not been this excited about a research opportunity since I first moved to Gravity Falls, decades ago. Fiddleford seems to think it’s endearing. Already, the townsfolk have been bringing us all forms of young creatures  from the woods. Some, like the very confused child gnome, were able to be returned to their family. Others, like the equally confused litter of Chupacabra pups get to stay. The Chupacabra are odd animals. They are reptilian in appearance, but behave like dogs. Mabel has already began making them little outfits. I suspect we may have to convert some of these grounds into a livestock farm in order to feed our carnivorous children. I have left the execution of that up to Fiddleford and the Jones. They’re farming folk, they should know how to do it properly. I am thinking we will need to keep pigs and goats- pigs for the wendigo and goats for the Chupacabra. Maybe chickens, if for no other reason than to complete what is apparently now the Jones-McGucket farm.

Harry eats mainly fruit, nuts and greens. He is also growing quite fast and is nearly as tall as I am now! His species are generally anywhere from 9 to 15 feet, depending on who you ask, so he still has a bit to go before he is considered fully grown. He continues to follow Stanley around and try to climb him. He’s getting a little too big to climb up on my poor brother, but I won’t stop it as it is the natural behavior of his kind, and also very amusing. Since Tate McGucket apparently has a knack for spotting and catching cryptids (Fiddleford told me that as a child, Tate used to talk about lake monsters and odd creatures in the woods all the time), I have told him to keep an eye out for any other children to send to our home. He has told me he will, “if for no other reason than to keep you out of my hair for a while.”

Every time I leave his shop, I feel guilty. He has a right to be so bitter towards me, but it still doesn’t feel good…

**Funding**

I have another idea to both provide funding for the orphanage and keep Stanley out of the way for a while. I know of research centers which allow the public to come in and learn about their subjects. As long as we can make sure the enclosures for our cryptids are safe, I feel we should be able to do the same. I’ve asked Stanley to run a gift shop, and maybe organize tours. I emphasized that these should be FREE tours and that the shop was where the profit would be. He tried to argue with me until our father slammed his cane on the table and demanded we shut up and that the middle ground was clearly a “suggested donation” box.

I agreed and Stanley mumbled something about that being an alright idea.

Mabel has jumped in on the idea and has been assigned the duty of following the tour groups with a wagon of refreshments and merchandise for purchase, as well as directing parking. Dad, wanting to be involved as well, was given the task of cashiering, since it allows him to sit and rest most of the time and therefore is kind on his old bones. Mabel gave him a nametag that says he is the “head cashier” because as she says fondly, “he likes to be important.”

Thanks to Stanley’s oddly charismatic nature, Mabel’s boundless enthusiasm and Dad’s no-nonsense attitude, business in the shop is booming and we are well funded.

**Fiddleford’s Children**

A peculiar cryptid that is local to Gravity Falls is the Killbilly. They are aggressive, teleportation-capable creatures who take the form of Southern woodsfolk. Thirty years ago, I was threatened every time I even heard or saw signs of one. Now, not so much. I did keep Fiddleford, after all. (Note: Fiddleford wants me to be sure to specify that he is not in fact a Killbilly.) They never seemed to bother with him during his time working on the portal with me. I wonder if they thought he was one of them and therefore not worthy of notice?

Apparently they reproduce in litters. I know this because a group of five dirty, glowing-eyed redneck children showed up on our porch a week ago. They don’t communicate in human language save for simple phrases like “no” “yeah” and “gimme.” Instead, they are likely to grunt, gesture and smack at you until you get the idea. Fiddleford suggested we teach them morse code or sign language, and I told him he can try that if he’d like, but I am staying away from these smelly, fanged, rambunctious kids.

They have actually taken to Fiddleford and try to all ride on his back like baby opossums. The ongoing joke is that he appears and acts somewhat like an adult Killbilly, so they must think he is their mother. They have bitten me multiple times, but leave him alone and listen to him, except when he put his foot down and insisted upon bathing them and dressing them in fresh clothes. They have VERY sharp claws, even as children. They stay away from the wendigo enclosure, but can and will harass all the other cryptids. One has already been tossed out a window by Bill’s telepathy, so they seem to avoid him as well. Bill has a short fuse and little tolerance for bothersome cryptids. I find that to be oddly relatable.

The killbillies take a threat stance when frightened or angry. They seem to become black, silhouette-like phantoms with only their eyes and teeth visible against the blackness. Fiddleford calls this action “silhouetting.”

They also hiss and bear their claws and teeth at things.

**Mealtime in the Orphanage**

I have mentioned how the wendigo children eat whole pigs and the Chupacabra pups consume goats’ blood, but I need to note how peculiar the mealtimes in this house truly are.

Jason and his sons feed the wendigo four or five times a day. This seems to keep them more or less satiated and therefore not likely to attack. We tried giving them live pigs, but that just ended horrifically (these children are truly terrifying supernatural hunters!), so now we are sure to slaughter the animals humanely before presenting them to the wendigo. The Chupacabra pups refuse to eat pre-killed prey, so we mostly just try to not get too attached to the goats.

Harry is confused whenever Stanley and I are in the same room together, considering we look and presumably smell a lot alike. He is shy around other members of the household, but less so around me, I think because I remind him of his main caretaker. He has a preference for pine cones over other forms of fruit and nut. I am not sure why- they don’t taste all that good.

The killbillies eat human food, but a few days ago, we noticed they seemed to be failing to thrive. Dipper and I brought one of them to the laboratory room which also acts as our medical exam center, and set to work figuring out what was wrong. What we found was astonishing. These creatures are internally identical to a human in almost every way, but their bodies require a higher blood-alcohol ratio to function properly, even as juveniles. We remedied this by offering them some of my whiskey, which they hissed at but drank. I have since learned that their favorite liquor seems to be corn-based whiskey, like the moonshine Jason is fond of. I am not sure where he gets the stuff, but have told him to supply us with enough to give the killbillies some at each meal.

The cryptids of Gravity Falls never fail to confuse and impress me with their oddness!


	10. Ford Regrets Accepting A Demon Into His Home

**Further Attempts to Humanize Bill**

Bill is oddly inquisitive and cooperative lately, which has put me on edge. He likes to sit in my office while I am working and either play his video games or pester me, dependent on his mood. In all the years I have known Bill Cipher, I never would have thought to use the words “inquisitive” or “curious” about him, but these are the words I find most fitting right now. His standard method of exploration matches that of any young child- for example, just yesterday he hit his elbow on a wall on accident. The pain from such a blow is different from other pains, as anyone who has ever hit their humerus on anything would know, so he found the sensation interesting. I don’t think Bill’s other forms had very much sense of sensation, as in every instance of him possessing a human’s body, he has seemed delighted and excited about the ability to feel things. His response to the odd pain in his arm was to go around and hit everyone else he could in the same spot, exclaiming “YOU TOO?” when they inevitably reacted in a similar manner to one another.

I have decided to go about explaining and demonstrating things to Bill as if he were a large superpowered toddler and not an all-knowing being from a nightmare dimension. So far, it seems to be surprisingly effective.

**Bill’s Stabby Phase**

Bill has discovered sharp objects and the way they penetrate human flesh. So far the injuries are as follows:

-Five stitches in Dipper’s arm  
-Several shredded shirts and sweaters  
-Three stitches in Fiddleford’s foot. He has been advised to wear shoes more often.  
-A nick in Stanley’s hand  
-Pain and three stitches in my left thigh. This was from a pencil, not a knife.  
-A killbilly bite on Bill’s wrist from when he attempted to go at one’s eyes with a pen.

We have hidden most of the knives and power tools, and take away any sharp object Bill happens to get his hands on. He thinks we are babying him no matter how many times I explain we are doing this because he could actually kill someone. I hope he doesn’t get a hold of Mabel’s knitting needles!

**Suffering**

Bill got into Mabel’s knitting needles. The doctor says the paralysis should be temporary and I should regain feeling in my legs in two weeks. You wouldn’t think that this would be a very painful injury, but the point in my spine where he drove the needle aches whenever my muscles contract, and seeing as the paralysis makes me unable to control this, I can just be going about my business and suddenly have a sharp pain in my lower back. Never have I wanted to murder a child more than right now. At least I have an excuse to hole up in my office and work on my research and writings. I can’t go down into the main house under my own power, (I tried. My useless legs flipped and propelled me down the stairs, like a Slinky but much less fun.) so there is no reason for me to have to leave this room.

When I find Bill again, (he has been hiding), I am going to give him a VERY strong talk about why he shouldn’t stab things.

**More Suffering**

My feet are tingling like they are asleep. I am trying TO sleep, so this is not ideal. I can more or less sit up and attempt to rub the tingles out of them, but it doesn’t help. I suppose I should just resign to not sleeping for the next two weeks. I have gone longer without sleep.

Fiddleford sleeps curled up like a dog sometimes. I suspect this is a habit left over from curling up against the elements in the dump. He also climbs things when he is frightened and loves to drop out of nowhere in his shop to scream at anyone who is misusing a power tool. He still does that thing he’s always done where his leg bounces like a dog’s when I scratch behind his ear. He claims it’s “nerve damage” from the memory gun, but he has done it since college, so I think it’s just a quirk of his. He also still loves talking to and babying garbage animals such as raccoons and opossums. He tried to argue that we should let a particularly fat raccoon into the house since it was his “ex wife.”

Sometimes I question his sanity.

**I Return!**

I have left this book for a while now because reading through it and reliving all that Bill did has depressed me. However, I am fully mobile again and Bill has been given a lecture. Stanley has been obnoxious and Sherman has not been helping, so Dad, sick of our squabbles, has all but forced us to go on a camping trip together to “bond.”

I have taken this in stride and set about trying to educate my brothers about the various plants and animals the Oregon forest has to offer. I am generally greeted with calls of “nerd” and fart noises. They seemed to get a kick out of my demonstration of how to get a cattail to explode into seed- WAIT. THEY WERE MAKING FUN OF THE FACT IT LOOKS LIKE A PHALLUS.

Anyway, we will be out here for a week, and if the hike out here is anything to go by, at least one of us will be dead by the end of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cattails are really funny when you think about it. Like the only part you can't eat is the hot dog shaped part. You can rub that bit to make them spew out their fluff and it looks really inappropriate. You can also just crack them like a glowstick for the same effect. So much fluff!!


	11. Pines Family Bonding?

**Camping, Night 1**

Sherman has ridiculed me for notating everything in my journal. Therefore I am going to write as loudly and obnoxiously as possible to spite him. To establish our personalities and clashes, here are profiles on each of us:

ME  
I am Stanford, I am the oldest of the three of us, and I am the most intelligent. I am not very wise sometimes, but I am intelligent.

STANLEY  
Stanley is my twin brother. We are genetically identical despite my six fingers. Apparently the polydactyl trait can be a “hidden” one- it is rare, especially in identical twins, but Stanley’s is hidden. Stanley does a lot of petty crimes and pokes fun at me a lot. He is not incredibly smart, but has a lot of “street” wisdom.

SHERMAN

Sherman is our younger brother. Stanley and I were teenagers when he was born, and both ended up out of his life when he was a small child. He is not used to the supernatural entities that inhabit this area the way the rest of us are, so I have that as leverage. He was deployed overseas in the military for a while, and has a lot of decent war stories. He tends to make jokes when he is nervous.

We are all forced into a single tent, which is terrible and crowded. Sherman has already complained heartily about my feet being so close to his face. He keeps implying my feet are like that of a duck’s. They are wider than normal, mostly due to my extra toes, but certainly not like a duck! Dad never seemed to care before whether or not we got along, so his sudden investment in our squabbles is unwelcome and strange.

**I Cannot Sleep**

I have a strange sense that something is lurking outside our campsite. It may also just be the fact that I am prone to bouts of paranoia, but I can’t shake the feeling that we are being watched, no, observed by something. Maybe it’s the birch tree that’s by the tent. I have been unnerved by the eye-like patterns on those trees ever since the events in the 80s. Eyes in general, honestly. I don’t like feeling like things are watching me. I have gone all over the perimeter of our campsite five times now and found nothing to indicate anything is around. This is mildly reassuring only in the sense that if the creature lurking were a Gravity Falls cryptid or a wendigo, I would have spotted some sign of it. Wendigo delight in letting their prey get glimpses of them while they hunt and lurk, they really are terrifying sociopathic creatures. I know the signs of dangerous local cryptids- Killbillies are not subtle and can be heard cackling from quite some distance, Gremloblins are large and leave footprints, the gnomes leave our family well enough alone…

So I sit inside the tent, guarding against whatever is lurking and watching my brothers and I, writing in my journal by lantern light.

**Camping, Night 2**

Sherman is down one set of clothes because Stanley and I tricked him into falling into the nearby creek. He is still mad at us, I think, but it was worth it. I never realized that being the oldest was so much fun! I can relentlessly pick on Sherman and tease him with stories of when he was an infant. I also have quite a few memories of Stanley and I in our childhood- I am more intelligent and therefore have a better and more clear memory.

However much fun we had during the day, I am once again sleepless. This time Stanley is awake as well, because it’s much more obvious that there is a threat. There is a smell in the air, a coppery smell, like an animal made a kill nearby. The odd thing, though, is that there are no signs of large wildlife in this entire area. No deer, no bears, no elk, nothing that could cause such a stench. Stanley suggested it may be a wendigo, since “they smell pretty bad,” which prompted me to explain that wendigo rarely smell of blood, and we would have heard some sort of commotion if one had recently killed in our area. I have accepted that this will be another sleepless night for me, and potentially for Stanley too. It does feel nice to have a companion in my protective vigil.

**Update**

There is something outside. We are doing our best to seem as though we are ignoring it while readying our weapons. If it comes into the tent, we will be ready. Beware, monster, for you have three tough men to fight through before you can make a kill! I spent thirty years of my life fighting for survival almost every day, Stanley is toughened from his youth on the street and Sherman is a military man- we are hard to out-class.

Hopefully I will be able to write more on this in the morning, when the threat has been abated.

**Morning, Day 3**

We are all three back in the manor, after the events of last night. Dad is less than pleased that his “bonding activity” did not work as he intended, but I’d rather relentlessly fight with my brothers and father forever than go back into those woods at night!

As the blood-like smell grew nearly unbearable, I peeked outside through one of the mesh windows in our tent. I saw something confusing- Fiddleford, facing away from us, standing in the middle of the campsite. My cell phone had no service out in the forest, so I could only assume something had happened back at the manor and he had come to get us when calling and texting failed. I was suspicious, as it isn’t really in-character for Fiddleford to rush out into the woods alone, especially not after dark- he’s very fearful of the supernatural creatures here, even after all these years of living outside among them. Part of me said that it must be a disaster back home if my Fidds overcame his fears to come find us, so I left the tent and approached him. He did not seem to be responsive to the stench permeating the campsite, but perhaps, I thought, if he were panicked, he may not even notice it. I reached for him and gently called his name. He did not turn to face me, but started shaking, as if he were laughing silently.

This was more than unnerving, so I repeated my call in a more firm tone, putting a hand gingerly on his shoulder. He felt chilled, even in the hot summer night, and kept shaking under my hand. I decided maybe he was having a bad time with his mental state and had simply wandered out here in a delirious state, which meant we needed to get him home before he harmed someone or himself. So, I went around to face him, to get a decent look at my very odd boyfriend standing in the middle of our campsite.

He was wearing the outfit he had been in when I left- a somewhat dirty white T-shirt he calls his “shop shirt” and overalls covered in motor oil stains. He was barefoot, as is usual for him in summertime despite my pleas for him to PLEASE wear shoes more often, especially in town. The odd thing was his facial expression- He was staring into space, slack-jawed, not speaking or blinking. It was enough to frighten me back into the tent where I quickly informed my brothers that this was NOT Fiddleford.

In my haste to get back into the tent, I had not zipped the flaps up properly, which Sherman corrected, admonishing me for “letting the smell in.”  Indeed, the coppery stench was right on top of us at this point and we all pulled our shirts over our faces to try and block it. Without much thought, my eyes flitted to each of us, counting in my head just to be sure all three of us were there. Something happened that made me do a double-take and re-count. Then I counted again. I nudged Stanley and very quietly prompted him to count as well, in case I was losing myself to panic. While he made the same expressions I am sure I had as he counted multiple times, I glanced out the window again. The doppelganger Fiddleford was gone now, without a trace. No footprints in the dirt, no noises of anyone coming through the brush, he had simply vanished. Stan elbowed me to get my attention and said, quietly, so as not to alarm our younger brother, that he had counted an extra person in the tent, and while he could not figure out where they were sitting, they were there. This was exactly what I had experienced, and I simply nodded.

I beckoned Sherman over and gently informed him of what was going on. His eyes widened and he explained he knew a story from his time in the military: A Native American legend I have also heard. There are beings which pray on groups in the wilderness by disguising themselves as a member of the group and picking off the real members one at a time. They are even known to take the form of someone they have already killed, so that the group never suspects a thing. They go by many names, depending on the culture- Goatman, ‘Yee Naldlooshi,’ or as they are commonly known outside of native culture, the Skinwalker. I suspect I had never run into one in Gravity Falls before due to my solitary nature- I never went out in a group, and if I had someone with me, it was a single other person like Fiddleford or Dipper. Three people is pushing the “group” thing a little, I thought, but perhaps it was hungry…

As soon as the thing became aware we all knew it was here, it vanished, and along with it, the smell. I reassured my brothers that as long as we kept the tent zipped shut, it could not get in and harm us. We stayed awake for an hour and a half or so, telling stories and actually, getting along quite well before the stench returned. We all fell silent in the hopes the thing would think we were asleep and leave us alone.

Instead, a deformed shadow of a hand began hitting the door of the tent, and a voice began demanding we let it in. This voice was almost otherworldly, like the noise a cat makes when it is frightened that nearly sounds like human speech but does not have the right intonations or cadence at all. This was the most frightening part of the night yet, and we all reacted out of pure terror: I brandished my knife at the door and demanded the thing leave immediately, Sherman picked up a crowbar and swore at the animal, and Stanley, the closest to the door, told it to “get the fuck out of here” and smacked at the hand. The smell and creature vanished once more. Stanley looked at his hand, then at us in confusion before asking out loud: “What the hell, that worked?”

It was at that point we decided to quit while we were ahead and abscond to the safety of the manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skinwalker legend here is taken half from research on the native legend, half on research on the Creepypasta legend. Also I live in the vicinity of where Bigfoot (Bigfoots? Bigfeet? Bigfeets?) are found but I've never seen one mostly because I live in the city and don't go outside so there's a funfact. More Pines Brother Drama and Trauma to come.


	12. Farmersville

**Dad Will Not Butt Out Of Our Personal Lives**

Despite the skinwalker incident which could easily have gotten one of us killed, Dad insists we attempt more bonding activities. Yesterday he hobbled into my office on his cane and threw a pamphlet down onto the desk, telling me that he knew I liked “supernatural nonsense,” so I may enjoy it. The pamphlet detailed the “Top Most Haunted Locations” in the country, including old asylums, abandoned theme parks and Civil War-era mansions. I was intrigued, of course, so I summoned Stan and Sherman to my office. They seemed uneasy about exploring haunted locations, but as usual, my enthusiasm for the topic was infectious and we began planning to go on a trip. How’s that for bonding, Dad?

**Trip, Night One**

I have quite a lot to write already!

We are currently staying in a Walmart parking lot in the RV we obtained, despite deciding we would try to stay in hotels. Let me tell you why:

It started about 4pm today when our RV broke down. We were in the middle of an almost endless sea of farmland, so logically I first attempted to fix the problem myself. The issue turned out to be a broken belt on the engine. We needed to obtain a new one. On top of everything, we could not even call for a tow truck, since being in the middle of nowhere meant there was no cell phone service. I climbed up onto the roof of the RV to see if I could spot any sign of civilization, and spotted a large farmhouse across a cornfield, about half a mile from the deserted highway. I told Sherman to stay with the RV in case someone did come by and stop to help us, while Stanley and I would go knock on the door of the farmhouse and hope they had a landline phone we could use to call for help.

Approaching the farmhouse through the corn, it looked deserted. I was excited simply because I like exploring these abandoned structures, but Stan was visibly unnerved. I told him we should go into the house, to see if perhaps there were any road maps or other useful things. He advised we not and instead return to the RV and await another traveler to help. I told him that I believe one of the most fun parts of a trip such as this is being self-sufficient, and if we could fix our situation without a random person’s aid, it would be a great story and memory. He merely “hmph-ed” at me and continued to follow my lead. The door needed to be rammed down, but we did get into the home and began exploring. The place had been abandoned since summer of 1965, if the old magazines in the living room were anything to go by. I was only about 12 that summer, turning 13. Strange that farmhouses across the country were being abandoned in a hurry for unknown reasons while Stanley and I ran and played on the beach in New Jersey.

I wondered what had caused this place to be abandoned so quickly, and brought out my portable blacklight to look for signs of blood. Stan poked fun at me for it, and I could only explain that I always carry the small light in my coat in case I need to look for signs of blood or ghosts. As I was arguing with my twin, my hand holding the light drifted up to shine across the rest of the dark living room, and Stan stopped in the middle of a sentence, his face paling and eyes going wide. I turned to see what had caused such a reaction in my brother and immediately felt the same cold fear in my stomach that I am sure he had. There, watching us were two small girls in matching flared dresses and headbands in their curled hair. They were glowing white in the shine of my blacklight, all the way down to their eyes which had no irises or pupils, just white voids. These children were ghosts. I never realized how scary twins could be when they dressed exactly alike this way, but it was terrifying. The only issue with child ghosts is that often, a demonic entity will either attach itself to them, or disguise itself as a child spirit in order to lull us into a sense of security.

As calmly as I could given the situation, I advised Stanley that we leave the house immediately and look for the RV part elsewhere.

We did end up finding the correct part- those belts are not difficult to salvage and there was a large farm truck in the front of the house. I had not realized how much time had passed- it was already starting to get dark. Sherman must think something had happened to us! We hurried back through the corn and emerged in front of the RV. I could not believe that in the apparent hours we had been gone, nobody had come by on the road. Either way, I was able to fix the RV and we carried on to the next town, a small town identified by its welcome sign as Farmersville.

We quickly made our way into the hotel and a disinterested girl at the front greeted us. I asked what she knew of the haunted farm outside town, and she looked deep into my eyes with a chilling seriousness and asked, “You were at the Hillcrest farm?”

I answered we had been looking for help as  we had broken down a few miles outside the town and needed assistance. She explained the local legend to me: Back in the mid-sixties, there had been some unexplained murders at that farm- The Hillcrest family had all died- Mr. Hillcrest had attempted to flee, leaving his wife and their young twin girls to their deaths. His body was found a week later in the woods on his property, his throat clearly slit with a weapon. They never caught the murderer, and any police who attempted to enter the property were always found dead with that same injury within a week, no matter how careful or watchful they became. Having entered the house myself, I was understandably paranoid of this serial killer and resigned to being unable to sleep. I have had bad insomnia since the 80s. Bill Cipher ruined my sleep schedule. He is the same reason I get so paranoid about everything. Frustrating, but occasionally comes in handy.

The receptionist, not hiding her intents at all, assigned us room 602, because as she said, “that’s where I put all the doomed tourists.” Ominous.

Two hours into trying to settle down in that room, it felt as if the room were about to burst into flame, it was so hot. I shone my blacklight on the place, and everything was lighting up. This entire room surely could not be a ghost! I asked Sherman and Stanley if they were objected to the idea of sleeping in the RV, and they quickly responded they were not and we should leave. We got out and I turned to look at this cursed place, only to see that what had been a charming small town was now a cracked street lined with charred husks of buildings, including the hotel we had just been inside. We left quickly, to say the least.

Asking the gas station attendant in the next town over (I shined my blacklight at him and startled him greatly until I explained I was a paranormal researcher and had just had a nasty encounter- he was not a ghost.), he explained that Farmersville had not been anything more than a burned ghost town for decades. Shortly after the Hillcrest family’s deaths, a strange tourist came to stay in the hotel, he was assigned room 602. He burned the place in the night, and the fire spread quickly. Nobody in the town survived, save for the receptionist at the hotel who had been out on a smoke break at the time the fire broke out. She’d lost her home and family, so she committed suicide shortly after the fire, returning to the site of the hotel to do so. It is suspected the tourist was the murderer of the family, but nobody could ever prove anything. Apparitions were apparently common in the remains of the town.

We decided to park in a well-lit 24 hour store parking lot, and here we stay. My brothers are asleep, at least I think they are, but I cannot relax. Stupid vacation.


	13. Abandoned Theme Parks

**List of Things Which Have Occurred Over The Last Week**

-We found a suicide victim hanging in the woods. The local police were alerted.

-Sherman insists we stop at every Waffle House we see. I am sick of pancakes.

-Stanley and Sherman have made up a game where they shout license plates at each other if the plate is from a state we are not currently in. Driving is difficult when your passenger suddenly screams “FLORIDA” right in your ear.

-I’m fairly certain that Denny’s and Waffle Houses after midnight are liminal spaces.

-We explored an old prison. Nothing there of interest but your standard issue angry convict ghosts.

-Stanley had to be bailed out of jail somewhere in Missouri because he shoplifted from a Kroger’s we stopped at to re-supply. It’s refreshing to see Kroger’s instead of the Pacific Northwest ones. It feels more like home.

-We are now working on a rumor of a park in New Jersey known as Wet Boy and Fun Times which closed in the 70s and was simply abandoned. I will update on that when we come back from exploring. I am mildly excited to be back in my home state for a while.

-Dear Lord, Excitement Park is still up and running. Excitement Park was a theme park which opened when Stanley and I were young teenagers. It was cheap, dangerous, and great fun if you were a reckless 14 year old boy. Once, on their downhill slides, Stanley and I were riding double- he stood in the back and I steered the sled, and we flew off the track at a corner and broke our arms on opposite sides. I also hit my head so hard on a rock it bled. I honestly do not know how I survived the accident, but we were back the next summer! We must take Sherman to show him all the things we experienced that he did not! It is only a twenty minute drive from Glass Shard Beach if I recall. We will check into a hotel there and go visit the park immediately!

**Wet Boi**

A lot has happened. I almost feel like I should give it its own journal. In fact, I will. Let me go get a fresh book at the stationary shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short. I am aware. Next chapter is a doozy though.


	14. The Conspiracy Of Wet Boi: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic Shit Ahead Warning guys
> 
> I've seen worse in PG-13 movies but like be warned.

**The Conspiracy of Wet Boi and Fun Times Theme Park**

**(AKA: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?)**

We have found out what happened at Wet Boi (that is the actual spelling and if I were not traumatized by what I found there I would be more upset).

Fiddleford, watching me attempt to write, has suggested I first give background on the park and what happened in the 70s, so I shall. In the early 60s, a water and theme park called Wet Boi and Fun Times was opened in New Jersey. It was your average amusement park, very enjoyable, rather expensive, but otherwise unremarkable. That is, until spring of 1975. There was a shooting, allegedly there were only a handful of survivors out of the thousands of people present in the park that day. The accounts I found differed on how soon after the incident the park shut down, ranging from a few months to the day after. Obviously, this park was known to be very haunted. The day started normally, with my brothers and I in a hotel wondering where to go next. Sherman suggested Waffle House for about the fifth time and I threw the contents of my pocket at him in annoyance. He laughed and started looking in one of the papers that had hit him: the pamphlet Dad gave me that had sparked the trip.

True, we had heard the rumor of the nearby theme park, but our fate was truly sealed when a grin spread across Sherman’s freckled face and he pointed and said, “Hey guys… Wet Boy.”

We drove the twenty minutes to the abandoned park and stopped near the gates. It was eerie and cloudy out, and a sweet smell permeated the air. It smelled of rotting fruit. I assumed there were trees nearby with their fruits rotting in the summer heat, but still, the sweet smell in the place made it all the more unnerving. We noticed that the electricity running to the place had not been turned off, and lights blinked and distant music played. This was the most eerie part by far- it seemed like the world was ending and we were gazing upon what had once been a fun part of society but was now crumbling. I did not know of the shooting at this point in time, so I speculated out loud as to why they would shut down in such a hurry. The concession stands even seemed to still be stocked with food items. They were probably all past expiration, but that did not stop Stanley from jumping a counter and starting up a cotton candy machine. After all, he reasoned to us, nobody was here, the place was abandoned, so nobody would care that we ate some of their cotton candy. Sherman coated his hands in the stuff and gleefully announced he was “Edward Cotton Candy Hands.” I happen to know how to shape cotton candy, it’s one of the few odd skills I learned while dimension-hopping, so I made a candy star on one of the paper cones provided to put the sugary fiber on. Sherman, mouth full of candy, called me a show off.

I glanced up at a roller coaster nearby and suggested I attempt to clear the track of debris so we could take a ride. My brothers agreed, and I began walking along the tracks and tossing branches and fir cones aside. I looked down at one point and saw them heading into a “mirror fun house,” and thought they were silly for thinking looking at mirrors would be fun. Eventually, I heard a commotion down there and so I slid down a support beam and ran in that direction. Stanley, wandering off after a shadow, had been spooked by whatever it was. I told him it was probably just a curious spirit and would not harm him. He looked less-than soothed. I had decided that the coaster was far too rickety for us to chance riding on, so we simply continued exploring the park.

The rotten-sweet smell got stronger as we hit the back of the park- the waterslide section. Not quite there, we decided to stop at the bumper cars. This was a safe ride to go on, so we each picked a car and got to it. Pines men are very competitive by nature, and brothers are competitive with each other from birth. This meant a lot of hard ramming and cursing at one another- all in good fun, of course, but my neck does still hurt a bit from the whiplash I sustained. Suddenly, all the empty cars seemed to start up and begin moving. We all stopped our own cars next to each other to watch in wonder. Sherman fearfully asked me if it was just an electrical impulse of some sort being sent to the cars, but I could see it wasn’t. The steering wheels of the cars were turning as they dodged and bumped each other in a very human manner. We left our cars in a hurry and Sherman and I sat on the curb near the bumper cars to speculate on why this place had so many ghosts. Stanley, meanwhile, was filming the ghost bumper car derby and chanting “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

It was then that I researched the park we were in and learned of the shooting. I read article after article out loud to Sherman, who looked more and more nervous. Supernatural things like this are not something he is used to, so it tends to frighten him a lot more than Stanley and I. He glanced around and asked where the shooting had begun, to which I replied all the accounts stated it had started in the water section of the park, near where we were. The weapons had apparently been automatic guns, but Sherman pointed out that there were almost no bullet holes in structures and trees. Some bodies had not been recovered, and I suggested we go looking to see what we could find. Another thing I thought was an odd coincidence: The day of the shooting was the same day I had arrived in Gravity Falls for the first time. The two instances surely had nothing to do with each other, but I did think it was interesting.

The smell was almost unbearable as we approached the small wave pool. What water we could see was green with algae and the bottom of the pool in most places was obscured by a thick greasy scum. It almost looked like someone had left a bunch of animal fat in the water to putrefy and rot. I suggested to my brothers that we find a way to drain the pool so we could see what lay at the bottom, and we did locate the switch. The smell became worse and worse as the water drained, and I actually ended up vomiting in a nearby bush. That “scum” was what happens when a hundred corpses are left underwater for decades. The bones had sunk to the bottom, but became visible among the goo when the water drained away. There was not much to go off of, but the fact that some valuables like watches and jewelry were still intact within the goop and bones indicated to me that these bodies had been dumped here, not shot. The lack of bullet wounds in skulls and bones also indicated this.

Sherman looked distant and pale, I still felt nauseous, and Stanley was trying to comfort our little brother while hiding his own terror. I sat across from the nasty pool and looked harder at the articles and accounts of the shooting. The handful of people who had survived had all happened to be employees. This to me indicated it was an inside job, and apparently one that had been covered up via dumping bodies into the pools. We now, like it or not, had a murder mystery on our hands.


	15. The Conspiracy Of Wet Boi: Part 2

**The Continuing Saga of Wet Boi**

We decided to go into the security offices of the park- perhaps security footage or records had been left behind of the shooting, so we could get a better grasp on what happened. Finding the building was easy enough, and breaking in was easily done as well, thanks to Stanley. I still don’t know where he learned to pick locks so effectively, but it is impressive. Every closed room of the building held heaps of skeletal remains. This was somehow less horrifying than the decomposing goo in the pools, but still managed to make Sherman begin panicking. Stan comforted him as best he could while I pushed on, into the security room.

We all began to rummage around in the room, until Stanley found a notebook. On top of the page was written “Secret Project.” I recognized the image right away. It was a sketch of a portal, similar to the one I had been tasked to build in the 80s. I backed up, suddenly gripped with terror as I thought of the implications of this, and knocked into a corkboard on the wall, causing it to fall and reveal the tapestry underneath- the unmistakable image of Bill Cipher. It was my turn to be gripped with panic as I backed away from the image, everything that face and form had done to me flashing through my mind. The owner of this park had been victimized by Bill? Why hadn’t this come up in my own research? Why did he decide to shut the park down via a massacre? Who did he possess to get that done? The questions raced through my brain as I staggered into the security camera console. I looked at all the footage from the tapes marked with the day of the incident: Mechanics, it looked like, all standing in a row in the break room, being commanded by one who’s face was visible on the camera. He had the trademark slitted pupils of someone who was being controlled by Cipher. As the employees turned to leave the room, I realized they all did. Bill was controlling them as a hive mind.

They committed the murders almost mechanically. Some with guns, some via tampering with rides. I felt sick again. I jumped at a hand on my shoulder only to realize it was Stanley, trying to comfort me. Then, we heard footsteps.

A man with graying brown hair and a nice suit stepped into the room, looking at all of us standing there and gawking. I stepped in front of my brothers defensively, facing this man. I demanded he identify himself, trying to keep the panicked tone out of my voice. He smiled almost gently at us and chuckled. He identified himself as the son of the owner of Wet Boi and Fun Times. He had been twenty years old when the incident happened. He had told his father over and over that the success Bill brought them was not without consequence, but the man had not listened. Shortly after the massacre, the owner had committed suicide. I told him that my family too had been victimized by Cipher, and that I was sorry he had become a victim himself. Then, he said something that sent a chill through all three of us:

“He just can’t leave us Pines alone, can he, cousins?”

Noting our shocked silence, he said he had been watching us all day via the security cameras and had in fact figured out (likely via Stan and Sherman’s intermittent enthusiastic chanting of our name) that we were Pines. His father had had a brother and two little sisters, the sisters disappeared as young teens, so he assumed, given our ages, we were his uncle’s children. He then said we knew too much and would not be allowed to leave. Hands gripped all three of us, I was too panicked to struggle out, but panic propelled Sherman to headbutt and then escape the grip, threatening to take our apparent cousin’s life if Stanley and I were not released. We were, and the owners of the hands seemed to fade away. Our cousin laughed again and said that if we could escape the park, we could go, and with that, he left.

The park had apparently been designed, likely by Bill, to be a death trap. There were turrets and sawblades and honestly it was the least of my worries so I do not remember a lot of the details. It was very deadly. We did not want to leave the building. Stanley pointed angrily at the Bill tapestry and shouted that “you can’t even leave us alone from beyond the grave!” punctuating his sentence with a punch to the eye of the image. Inaccuracy of his statement aside (Bill lives in our home, I reminded him later), that punch opened a secret trap door, probably a way for employees or the owner to escape if the death trap mode were activated. We hurried out and found our cousin standing despondently in the parking lot.

He looked me dead in the eyes and asked me to take his life then. He had lost his family, his fortune, and could not stop having nightmares about the massacre. He looked almost exactly like a grayer version of my baby brother… Same gelled-back, brown hair, same blue eyes, same freckled cheeks, the same nose we all share. I felt like the situation was unreal, like my voice was detached from my body as I steadily, firmly commanded Stan and Sherman to go into the RV. Stan tried to redirect me, asking if I was sure, but I just repeated my command more harshly. Once I heard the door of the RV shut, I raised my gun to the head of this man who looked exactly like my baby brother, and I pulled the trigger.

Numbly rejoining my family in the RV, all I could say was “We should have just  gone to Waffle House.”


	16. Born Strange

**It Does Not End**

Returning home, none of us could shake the trauma we felt at Wet Boi. I even sought the comfort of my father, a man not known for being comforting even in the slightest. I told him the entire story and he nodded and told me that he had hidden something from all three of us.

My father had a twin. A brother named Fredrick (Similarly named twins apparently run in the family. Filbrick and Fredrick, Stanford and Stanley, Mabel and Mason…). He wanted to start his own amusement park, to entertain people and have fun. Fredrick had disappeared in the late 40s, and my father had searched for him to no avail. He had thought maybe his brother would appear in the 50s, when Stanley and I were born, but he did not. Therefore, Dad gave up on finding his brother. Their little sisters, also twins, had disappeared as children and were never heard from again. This, he told me, tended to happen in the 40s in the New Jersey ghettos, and while tragic, was not nearly as mysterious as his own twin leaving. My uncle Fredrick was the father of the cousin who looked exactly like Shermie. The cousin I shot and killed. Who smiled and thanked me as I held a gun to his head, eyes sparkling just like Shermie….

My father had, shortly before he met Mom, attempted to start his shop. He failed over and over again until he found himself cold and homeless, desperate for any money, any way out. My father had made a deal with Bill.

Bill told him that his first born son would be brilliant- one of the greatest minds in the world. He would be “born strange”, and enthusiastic and have a love for the occult and supernatural. Bill told my father that if he promised that son to him, he would make the shop take off and be sure Dad lived a comfortable life. Dad, in his desperation, took the deal. Two years later in June, Mom had twins.

He named us both Stan- Stanford and Stanley. We have the same middle name, all of us do. Stanford, Stanley and Sherman Filbrick Pines. I was first born. I was born with an impossible genetic anomaly that was made more impossible by the fact my twin did not share it. “Born strange.” I was smart, I loved the supernatural and occult, because I was strange. When I was 30, I moved to Gravity Falls. Bill abandoned his current project because the Pines he had been given, the one he knew would be the most useful, was in his domain.

I was sold to Bill Cipher, my fate with him was sealed before I was even born, and I don’t know what to do with that information or how to react.


	17. Ford Distracts Himself Mach 1

**Trying to Cheer Up**

Here is a list of jokes Sherman has made about our recent experience in an attempt to make everyone feel better:

-We went too deep inside the Wet Boi.

-Man, that was one smelly Wet Boi, huh guys?

-You know us Pines, we can’t stay out of a Wet Boi.

-It was sure dark inside that Wet Boi.

-No wonder Fiddleford likes you, he couldn’t have survived being inside that Wet Boi. (I promptly punched him in the chest for that one.)

-Hey Dipper, wanna see how many ghosts fit inside this Wet Boi? (Dipper actually enjoyed the footage, so that was good.)

**Household Nonsense**

I have tried to divert my energy elsewhere and teach the wendigo human mannerisms. The odd thing about these children is that they appear to be gaining more humanlike characteristics. It is my thought that perhaps we can rehabilitate them into true human forms again!

Note: I would not ever try this with a fully grown wendigo. The possibility for being maimed or killed is too great.

Step one was to get the children used to my presence. I am terrified of them still and I think they can sense it, as both of them turned to look at me with their big, empty eyes when I came down. We keep the basement dark because the wendigo seem to prefer it that way and this made the experience even eerier. At least, I thought, I would not be harassed by killbillies while I was here- they remain very fearful of the wendigo no matter how long they stay.

I first let the creatures investigate me, as per Jason’s suggestion. They sniffed all over my clothes and hair and the older of the two even licked my cheek. A long, clawed hand took my glasses and the wendigo started gnawing on them. I grabbed them back straight away and wiped the saliva off. One of them butted its antlers gently into me, and I knew I had been accepted as a non-threat and non-food.

Step two was to get them to even kind of stand at a table to eat. Usually, we kill their pig and then put it on the ground in front of them. Tour groups love watching the children tear into a corpse, it makes me slightly nauseous. I had Jason help me bring a folding table down into the basement and we tried putting their next meal on top of it. Jason gently coaxed them to eat while they stared blankly at the food and us. My assistant patted the pig carcass and assured the wendigo that it was in fact food, and we were just trying something different for once. The smaller, younger one stepped forward, in a cautious, claws-forward stance, and sniffed at the pig. Deciding it was in fact food, it tore into the meat. The smell prompted the other to join in.

They’re very strange creatures, these juvenile wendigo. They are providing me with a great opportunity to observe the non-hunting and stalking behavior of their species.

**Killbilly Culture?**

Killbillies are blood-suckers. I know this from all the times I have nearly been bitten by adults in the forest. The ones we seem to encounter and take in, however, seem more docile than the terrifying creatures I first identified decades ago. My studies back then confirmed that killbilles were the cause of around 7 in 10 disappearances of hikers in the area. I can only assume that it is because they look so humanoid that an unsuspecting tourist may approach them to see if they need help or can give directions. However, I suspect that there are two “clans” of killbillies in Gravity Falls: the Forest Clan and the Dump Clan. I will now go into further detail of each clan. I am not trying to distract myself with pointless rambles, I am in fact notating scientific information.

**The Forest Clan**

This clan is more aggressive. They attack hikers and tourists and hunt in packs. They also seem to be nomadic, and if one is careful, or falls asleep while monitoring bird populations up in a fir tree, one can spot them walking in a group, the smaller children clinging to the adults’ backs like opossums. This too grants a sight that is rare in both clans- mother killbillies. I have never gotten close enough to see them closely, but they appear to wear the same rags and hats as the rest, differentiated by a smaller size and the groups of infants clinging to their bodies.

Forest clan members do not appear able or willing to communicate in human language, but they can and will mimic human sounds such as grunting and cackling at will. They also seem to zero in on humans who have alcohol on their person specifically, likely due to their species’ need for the substance to thrive. There are reports in the Gravity Falls History Museum of prohibition-era bootleggers disappearing and their still sites being found days later completely ransacked. I suspect this was the work of the Forest Clan. All in all, they are not friendly towards humans and I dread the day we find a Forest Clan orphan.

**The Dump Clan**

The group of killbillies from the Gravity Falls Dump are less aggressive towards humans than their forest-dwelling cousins. They can communicate with more human speech, using simple phrases and attempting to mimic our vocalizations. Fiddleford can speak what I have dubbed “Killbilly Hamboning Language” or KHL which is the peculiar method all these creatures use to speak amongst one another. I suspect that Fiddleford’s extended time sleeping in the dump as well as his intelligence is what caused him to pick up the language. The juveniles in the orphanage seemed confused the first time Fiddleford ever used KHL with them. I don’t think they quite expected a human to be able to speak it.

Most of our juveniles (dubbed “killdren” by Stanley and Sherman) are from the dump clan. They stay in one place- the dump, and have crude alcohol stills and apparently small colonies of raccoons for their nutritional needs. Their mothers are rarely seen, tending to stay hidden with the infants for the preservation of the species. We recently obtained one such infant, clinging to the back of one of the older juveniles. The baby seems to take human formula mixed with corn whiskey rather than water and is growing. It will be interesting to see how a fully human-reared killbilly turns out in adulthood.

I am mostly just glad that none of our “killdren” have decided human blood is tasty thus far.


	18. Ford Gets A Cat

**Something Stranger Than Usual**

This evening when walking along the tree line to discover any new cryptids or oddities, I heard a sound. Upon inspection, the source was a small fluffy, gray kitten, dirty and cold and mewing. I am not a cruel man, so I scooped up the kitten and quickly put him into my coat pocket to warm him. He fit easily into one of my hands, he was so small. By the time I got back to the manor, the little ball of fluff was purring so hard his body vibrated and he had warmed up considerably. Fiddleford immediately took to the kitten and began making up a batch of our Kitten Replacement Milk we keep around for creatures like the infant mothman or baby cat-tails who do not take human formula. He told me the kitten was likely about a month old, and would be starting to wean soon, but for the time being still needed milk.

I took the little animal out f my pocket oand put him on the kitchen table to start pulling pine needles and burrs from his fur when I noticed something odd about his paws. They seemed large and strangely shaped. Of course, I was concerned he was injured or malformed, so despite his tiny mews of protest I flipped him onto his back to look closer. I found that there was nothing wrong or injured, this little kitten simply has six toes on each front paw!

Of course, we are keeping him. His name is Tesla.

**Home Update**

Things are going smoothly in the home. Bill is continuously distracted by his violent video games, the killdren are growing and being nuisances as usual, and Tesla is growing into a large fluffy cat. We think he is mostly Maine Coon, which means he will be quite big when fully grown! He seems indifferent when I point out that he and I are exactly alike and show him my hand which is understandable given he is a cat. I still get excited though. If only I could have had a polydactyl cat when I was a child, it surely would have soothed the pain I felt when I was bullied. Instead, we had the clumsy housecat, Newton. I found him in the crawlspace under the pawnshop and we kept him. He met his end in the middle of the road when I was fifteen. We are planning to keep Tesla well away from major roads.

All in all, things are going well in this quiet little town.

**Moth-Child**

I mentioned before that the home kept KMR for an infant mothman or Moth-baby? Caterpillar-child? We are unsure what to call it at this time. We took it in a week ago. It has the torso of a human baby but the back end of a caterpillar. It is all black and gray, even on the skin, save for its almost glowing red eyes. It sleeps a lot and climbs on everything. So far outside of its milk, it seems to enjoy soft fruits and leaves. It is somewhat fuzzy to the touch, even on the more humanoid parts, sort of like a peach skin. I am interested to see how this child develops.

Other orphans we have obtained here are a few pioneer ghost children, an infant zombie whose bites are proven to be very ineffective since she has no teeth, and two more child wendigo. I really wish the wendigo would stop thinking our basement is a suitable place to settle, they are very frightening. The ghost children like to wander and scare the absolute daylights out of Fiddleford, considering he is easily spooked. I have told them to stop and be kinder to someone who took them into his home.

**Adult Rehab**

Adult killbillies are difficult to work with because they’re large and aggressive. Recently one was brought in by some concerned tourists who were directed to our home by Tate when they showed up with the injured creature in his shop. The mere fact that this kind couple was not attacked by the vampiric cryptid was an indication of its state.

Killbillies walk very low to the ground, on all fours sometimes, even. They rest in a crouch and really only stand up straight when reaching for things or threatening, so it is very easy to not notice how large they are. The adults average about six and a half feet tall, with many being taller. No wonder, then, that they are able to so easily take down hikers and other hapless tourists!

This killbilly was a large male, about six feet and nine inches. He seemed to have gotten into a bad fight with some sort of animal that left gashes on his arms and legs and ripped out a few claws on his hands. I suspect one of the wild boar that are invasive to this area as the perpetrator. Most creatures, cryptids included, know to leave the large, aggressive pigs alone, but apparently not this particular killbilly. The creature was barely conscious and clearly suffering from his injuries, as he could barely manifest more than a disgruntled “nyeh” at being moved. I had Sherman help me carry him down into our medical lab where we observe all the orphans taken in upon entry into the home.

The killbilly needed an amputation of his left leg up to the mid-thigh as it had already began to die and I did not want to risk sepsis. We aren’t sure how long he had been trying to survive with these injuries, but I suspect at least a week, and up until he physically could not drag himself any further, if the scrapes and dirt trails on his clothing and skin were anything to go by. By this point the creature was already unconscious again, so I performed the amputation and closed off the wound. I also cleaned and stitched up the other, less severe wounds and bandaged the fingers which were missing claws.

IV saline and an antibiotic was given and as the creature began to stir, I brought in Fiddleford to explain via KHL that we were trying to help him and it would not do him good to attack us. He seemed satisfied with the explanation and, despite my protests and what must have been a massive amount of pain, attempted to hop off the exam table. He fell due to the missing leg and let out a comically confused squawk from the ground. I realized that we have a creature who may not be able to return to the forest, and if he could, it would not be for a while.

So it became that we needed to set up for adult cryptid containment and rehabilitation as well.

So far, we have put the adult killbilly in the same sleeping area as the juveniles. They seem excited to have an adult of their own around. He appears to be from the Forest Clan, as Dump Clan killbillies are not found out so far as he was normally, and they are not likely to be so weary of seeking human aid that they are unconscious before someone discovers them. The killbilly seems disgruntled at his new lack of one leg, but is working to adapt to it well. He is learning very quickly to use the crutches Fiddleford and I obtained and attempted to train him in. He also seems to be able to go on his hands and leg and move with minimal effort, sticking the crutches into the back of his overalls. I can’t say I approve of this as a storage method, but I am impressed with the cleverness and adaptability these creatures display!


End file.
